OKC, Village Police Departments To Bring Officers Cleared Of Deadly Shooting Charges Back To Duty

Six Oklahoma City Police officers will return to work after the Oklahoma County District Attorney announced Friday she's dropping criminal charges against them, Police Chief Wade Gourley explained in a press conference Monday.

An officer from The Village Police Department was also cleared from a deadly use of force incident.

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Gourley said the officers’ return to work will take some time. They will have to undergo a lengthy process. Gourley learned last Friday six of his officers were cleared of charges stemming from the 2020 shooting deaths of Stavian Rodriguez, 15, and 60-year-old Bennie Edwards.

“It’s important those families know we looked at those instances and said both of these shootings,” Gourley said. “And said you know there are some things we can do better at, and we did do better at.”

The department created a reality-based training for all officers to learn de-escalation tactics and added more less-lethal weapons to the force.

“We’ve not sat still during the two and a half years,” Gourley said. “We’ve made a lot of changes in our organization.”

Changes the six officers cleared of charges will have to learn, along with training to get up to speed. Gourley said the officers will go through a "Return to Duty" protocol to determine if they're fit for police work.

“That includes a wellness team gets involved with those officers, they go see a counselor,” Gourley said. “We don’t want them to have any issues in the field that could impact them but impact the community as well.”

Gourley knows the return to duty will not be easy for everyone in the community and the families impacted.

“There’s nothing I can say that’s going to ease their pain, this definitely doesn’t ease their pain,” Gourley said. “I think there’s been a lot of pain for the officers who have gone through this as well as their families.”

Gourley said he did meet with community leaders after learning the officers’ charges were dropped but did not comment on what the conversations were about.